Classics Reconsidered: Murray Perahia’s 1996 recording of Handel and Scarlatti

Edward Breen and Tim Parry return to Murray Perahia’s 1996 recording of Handel and Scarlatti on Sony Classical

EB I heard the last track of this album first. I was still an undergraduate and knew very little of Scarlatti’s keyboard sonatas until I started collecting CDs from Philips’ Great pianists of the twentieth century series. I’d bought a few already: Gould, Horowitz, Bolet and of course Argerich. Those burnished gold covers were enticing enough but the music selections were also intriguing. Gould’s pieces from My Ladye Nevells Booke in particular had awoken my taste in early keyboard works but his Scarlatti had left me cold, in comparison to Scott Ross. I’d studied enough binary sonata form by that point to be tuned in to the structure of the music but nothing prepared me for the sound or the nuance of how Perahia plays the B minor, or the A major sonata particularly. Perahia, more than anyone else, set me off on a Scarlatti journey that led me to Ivo Pogorelich and many other great pianists. [...]

To read the full text of this feature, please visit Gramophone.co.uk (March 2026)